The mobile challenge

By Bianca Lipari

With employee mobility increasing, the biggest challenge facing vendors is to prove the real value of their wireless products. By Bianca Lipari.

In the US, people are able to work in airports, hotel rooms, coffee shops and conferences, and be sure their laptop will be connected to their company's network. Real time access has become so integrated into every day life in the US that people have the freedom to access their company's network from just about any place. So why don't Australians enjoy the same level of freedom?

Insufficient security is the biggest reason why most Australian enterprises are not implementing WLAN, according to analyst group Gartner. Many CIO's and IT managers believe that by allowing real time access to corporate information, their enterprise will become exposed to intrusion.

Another part of the problem is related to the geographical vastness of Australia, which directly affects infrastructure, "Wireless LAN is not very scalable, cost effective or practical. You have to deploy a base station every fifty metres and have power supply and the cost is prohibitive," says Robin Simpson, Research Director Mobile & Wireless at Gartner Asia Pacific.

Wi-Fi refers to the current industry standard for wireless LANs (Local Area Networks), which provide users with high-speed mobile Internet access without plugging in cords or cables. Wi-Fi networks consist of access points that generate transmissions of a specific radio frequency designated for such use. The benefit of wireless LAN (WLAN) is that it has a higher bandwidth than other wireless technologies, giving users the ability to conduct advanced applications remotely, provided there is a "hotspot" nearby.

"High bandwidth allows you to run standard desktop type applications, web browsers, email, corporate portals - basically anything you can do in the office, you can do over a wireless LAN. People think that these things can be done on GPRS but they can't, as they don't have the bandwidth needed", says Simpson.

Whereas Wi-Fi requires high bandwidth, GPRS (general packet radio service) supports a wide range of bandwidths and is particularly suited for sending and receiving small bursts of data, such as email and web content. GPRS is potentially available just about anywhere in Australia where you can make a phone call. The technology allows mobile phones to be used for sending and receiving data over an Internet Protocol (IP)-based network. GPRS is a data bearer that enables wireless access to data networks like the Internet anywhere there is mobile phone access.

Dealing with securityWireless technology responds to a range of effective security such as the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption standard, the setup and use of a virtual private network (VPN) or IPsec, and a firewall or DMZ. Further developments are expected to help alleviate the security fears that are holding consumers back. "The IEEE international standards body has been working on better security standards for wireless LAN, and has been for some time. This will define much better ways of security. The trouble is, it is a committee process and it is taking a long time", says Gartner's Robin Simpson. "However, the WiFi Alliance has introduced WPA (WiFi Protected Access), a built-in security measure. This will be a WiFi standard from August this year and is a big advance in satisfying enterprises that WiFi is secure enough to use."

Not just big boys toys

Despite security and bandwidth issues, there are definite advantages to being mobile.A variety of devices have been designed to give users the highest level of mobility and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's) are one such example.

PDAs are slowly gaining momentum across corporate Australia but are yet to gain widespread acceptance. According to industry experts, most enterprises are not fully aware of the real return on investment (ROI) because they are perceived as expensive executive toys.

"Except for a very small number of vertical industries, PDA's in general are being used by individuals rather than enterprises," says Gartner's Simpson. "There may be a lot of PDA's within enterprises but in general they haven't been purchased by the organisation."

Simpson adds that because the devices are within a personal expenditure limit, most workers will consider buying a PDA for themselves even if the enterprise won't reimburse them, simply because they are going to get some personal benefits.

The future

Ultimately, the biggest challenge facing vendors is to prove the real value and benefit of their products and services. Fast becoming sophisticated business tools, the PDA industry is investing heavily in the technology to make it a more attractive enterprise tool.

But, Intel's Sean Casey says that much of the focus on the PDA and mobile phone market is unwarranted. He believes the future of wireless is PC's and laptops, which will remain the primary way we manage our data: "There has been a lot of talk about the PDAs and mobile phones. What we will start to get is a PDA performance within a mobile phone and it will remain an access tool. It is not going to replace your laptop or PC," says Casey who is CSO Field Applications Engineer, Intel Communications Group.

"We will have the phone, which will have PDA capability and some processing performance power and storage - and we will still have a central resource, the PC. This is where we can interact and really manage data instead of just accessing it." Gartner's Jan Simpson agrees. "Although there are never going to be hotspots everywhere, the laptop is still the best tool for full powered portable computing of wireless LAN.

"GPRS can be used everywhere but you cannot get the throughput that you can through wireless LAN. They have different purposes and different uses and are in fact very complementary. One could never replace the other."

Ultimately, mobility is about ensuring peoples' ability to stay in touch no matter where they are located. But does the cost of the technology outweigh the benefits? "The biggest question that enterprises need to ask," says Simpson, is "What value can we get by providing real time access to corporate data for somebody who works in the field? There are only a limited range of job roles where that is actually useful.

"If you are doing field data collection and getting that back to the office, if it is incredibly important in terms of the data, then you will do it wirelessly," he says. "Otherwise, there is no real need for wireless and the expense and complexity of developing something for wireless," Simpson concludes.